I'm tired of waiting for Treantmonk to complete his guide, so I went ahead and took on the challenge.

This is an expansion of Treantmonk's Guide including the new material from the APG, UM, and UC. I am not doing any adventure path or blog stuff at this time. If I ever do that, it'll be in a separate additional guide.

As I mention in the guide, I am NOT a replacement for Treantmonk, nor do I claim to be an expert on all things Pathfinder. I respect and appreciate any comments and suggestions you have on how to improve this guide.

At the time of this posting, this is a work in progress. If I haven't evaluated the last level 9 spell, then be patient and wait to let me know if I've missed something. I've got like 200 more spells to go.

Also, I'm not at the point of adding pictures to the guide yet, though there are some leftovers from Treantmonk's Guide. That'll come eventually.

Teleportation subschool: The best part of it is that it's Supernatural. Never fear grapples again!

Looking forward to elemental schools. They sort of confuse me, the information seems incomplete, especially the newer Metal/Wood/Void ones and what spells actually belong to them. The Air element seems sexy, though. At level 10 you have unlimited use Fly. Take that, Witch!

Dazing Spell is excellent. If it's possible despite all the spell levels (one of the feats via metamagic rod, perhaps), it stacks beautifully with persistent spell. Or bouncing spell, if it's a single target, one-off blast, though you shouldn't be wasting Dazing on those. I like Dazing Spell best on stuff like Flaming Sphere, Ball Lightning, Aqueous Orb. Reflex based spells that you get to keep around for a while and move to new targets each round to spread the daze around.

Ectoplasmic Spell has some utility when combined with Blink or an spell to go ethereal. Probably best to just get a rod, though.

Maybe. We'll see how I feel after I'm done with the monster of spells ahead of me. There's nothing that says I can't do it a bit later.

StreamOfTheSky wrote:

Teleportation subschool: The best part of it is that it's Supernatural. Never fear grapples again!

Indeed! I think that the movement-as-a-swift-action aspect of it is slightly overlooked too.

StreamOfTheSky wrote:

Looking forward to elemental schools. They sort of confuse me, the information seems incomplete, especially the newer Metal/Wood/Void ones and what spells actually belong to them. The Air element seems sexy, though. At level 10 you have unlimited use Fly. Take that, Witch!

I look forward to evaluating them too. My goal is to have the spells and elemental schools evaluated by this Wednesday.

Dazing Spell is excellent. If it's possible despite all the spell levels (one of the feats via metamagic rod, perhaps), it stacks beautifully with persistent spell. Or bouncing spell, if it's a single target, one-off blast, though you shouldn't be wasting Dazing on those. I like Dazing Spell best on stuff like Flaming Sphere, Ball Lightning, Aqueous Orb. Reflex based spells that you get to keep around for a while and move to new targets each round to spread the daze around.

I've been corresponding with Shoelessinsight on this guide, and we both agree that Dazing Spell is borderline overpowered. That doesn't stop us from using it though ;)

StreamOfTheSky wrote:

Ectoplasmic Spell has some utility when combined with Blink or an spell to go ethereal. Probably best to just get a rod, though.

Blink didn't immediately come to mind when I rated that. It's still pretty circumstantial to use up a feat slot. Definitely a rod.

Although... if you're making that one-trick pony Enervation Wizard, you still might want to pick it up. I guess I'll go add that in there real quick.

Persistent Spell: Think you have an error here. "Bouncing spell for a single target." I would rate it much higher, forcing two saves drastically increases chance of failure. It also works well not just on the immediate save or lose/die spells, but also on effects that give a new save each round to end, like glitterdust. Also goes great w/ Dazing, as mentioned.

Rime Spell is good, I think you rate it too highly, though.
Selective is good, works fine on a rod, though.

Arcane Shield: It's too costly and as you said will be overlapping. I'd make it red.

Evolved Familiar: There are useful evolutions, like reach if you use the familiar to deliver touch spells. But the 13 cha requirement is too costly for most wizards.

I agree that Greater Spell Specialization is awesome. Doesn't mean you should be rating the base feat higher for it. If anything, requiring such a crappy pre-req might knock Greater SS down a peg. ;)

Spell Perfection is amazing; it's basically limited to a level 5 or lower spell, because you WILL basically want to use it for Quicken Spell.

Arcane Discoveries:

Fast Study's main appeal is the 1 min. to fill a single open slot option. I'm still skeptical how often you'll have 1 minute to spare but not 15...

Immortality's sole purpose seems to be to piss off the Alchemist for stealing one of their capstone options. :)

Archetypes you were probably too kind towards, heh heh. They really do suck. The scrollmaster in particular is annoying cause I love the Read of Die anime, and that archetype looks like someone at Paizo who loves that anime decided to make a archetype modeled after her powers, but had no idea how things work mechanically in the game. Spellslinger is notable as a dip to add up to +5 save DC for another caster's spells at the expense of the lost CL for dipping wizard. Horrible for a wizard to take levels in herself, though.

Persistent Spell: Think you have an error here. "Bouncing spell for a single target." I would rate it much higher, forcing two saves drastically increases chance of failure. It also works well not just on the immediate save or lose/die spells, but also on effects that give a new save each round to end, like glitterdust. Also goes great w/ Dazing, as mentioned.

Rime Spell is good, I think you rate it too highly, though.
Selective is good, works fine on a rod, though.
EDIT: Just looked up Rime spell again and I've overestimated the Entangle Condition. I thought it was immobilizing. Too bad it's not. Still, not a terrible thing but that drops it down to green.

Arcane Shield: It's too costly and as you said will be overlapping. I'd make it red.

Evolved Familiar: There are useful evolutions, like reach if you use the familiar to deliver touch spells. But the 13 cha requirement is too costly for most wizards.

I agree that Greater Spell Specialization is awesome. Doesn't mean you should be rating the base feat higher for it. If anything, requiring such a crappy pre-req might knock Greater SS down a peg. ;)

Spell Perfection is amazing; it's basically limited to a level 5 or lower spell, because you WILL basically want to use it for Quicken Spell.

Arcane Discoveries:

Fast Study's main appeal is the 1 min. to fill a single open slot option. I'm still skeptical how often you'll have 1 minute to spare but not 15...

Immortality's sole purpose seems to be to piss off the Alchemist for stealing one of their capstone options. :)

Archetypes you were probably too kind towards, heh heh. They really do suck. The scrollmaster in particular is annoying cause I love the Read of Die anime, and that archetype looks like someone at Paizo who loves that anime decided to make a archetype modeled after her powers, but had no idea how things work mechanically in the game. Spellslinger is notable as a dip to add up to +5 save DC for another caster's spells at the expense of the lost CL for dipping wizard. Horrible for a wizard to take levels in herself, though.

That's as far as I've gotten so far.

Good points.

The reason I like Rime Spell so much is that it's only +1. The only bad thing about it is that it's only applicable to frost spells that deal damage. At lower levels it's a bad pick, but as you level up it gets better.

As far as Persistent spell, I'm not a statistician, but I've heard that rerolling a dice and taking the higher is like getting a +3.5 to the dice roll. Is the inverse also true? If it is, then you're basically getting a 50% bonus on Heighten Spell when you use Persistent spell.

And yeah, Arcane Shield probably should be red... It's definitely better than Arcane Blast which I rated just before rating Arcane Shield. I still like that it's an immediate action though.

Thanks for the tip on Evolved Familiar. I'll add that to the text and maybe even make it orange. I personally don't like having my familiar deliver touch spells though.

Selective spell is probably better as a Rod. +1 spell level is still pretty cheap though, but some spontaneity that the rod can offer makes the metamagic that much better.

I'm joking with Immortality btw. It's a level 20 ability that does basically nothing mechanically, so there's really not any point in rating it at all.

It must have been late, but I somehow forgot about how it lets you fill empty slots in a minute. I agree with you though, a minute is EVEN STILL a very long time. That said, if you have no idea what to expect when the day arrives, it might not be a bad feat to have. I might bump that up to green after I ponder on it for a bit.

And yeah, I absolutely hate the Archetypes. They're completely insulting. I don't know if you got that from my evaluation in the guide where I was trying very hard to play good cop.

Unprepared Combatant: The biggest issue is the cast time. 3E had a similar spell in Spell Compendium called Shock and Awe (great name!). It was an immediate action and iirc gave no save.

Ear-Piercing Scream: It's not as good as Color Spray, but it targets a different save, does decent damage, and the daze effect never really goes obsolete. I would rate this higher.

Vanish: Potent effect initially, but the duration makes it quickly become less appealing once you've got a few 2nd level slots available to put Invisibility in. Might be rated too high. not sure.

Dancing Lantern: Not just Light, but dancing lights is a cantrip, too. This spell sucks.

Jury-Rig has a very limited use in using on the party fighter's crappy non-masterwork shield if he's using Fortified Armor Training feat to effectively give him crit immunity. Not saying that makes it good, but it is a sort of cool low level trick.

Stop with the disclaimers about how you don't know everything, and about how Treantmonk is super-awesome and that you're just happy to be able to live in his shadow.

I think it's understood that people who write the guides are speaking from their own perspective, and that the writers are human. Treantmonk was the first person to make a few guides, and while they're nice, they're flawed.

That's my advice. Just stop with the whole "I probably don't know anything" routine. Your experience and advice is just as valid as his is. Maybe include a link to it, but don't make it the biggest non-title text in your guide. This is your guide, people are reading it because they want YOUR opinions, not treantmonk's. His guide is already mentioned 5 times every time someone starts a thread asking for advice on a wizard, so it really doesn't have to be mentioned again - especially because there's some bad advice in it. Not too much, mind you, but it's there.

I don't know why, but people constantly qualifying and devaluing their own opinions irritates me. Own it. You obviously feel comfortable enough to write a guide, don't start it off by talking about how someone else's guide is probably the way to go. If I'm reading your guide, I value your opinion.

So sure, link to his guide. Or, better yet, just link to the "guide to the guides." Something like "for other perspectives on this class or some advice to get you started on other classes, look HERE for the link to many excellent guides." with a disclaimer that all other guides on the internet may never read the same now that they've experienced your exercise in perfection.

On actual advice on the feats, you might want to clean up the wording on persistent spell. You write "Bouncing spell for a single target," which implies that the feat only works on one creature per spell or on spells that target only one creature, when really any creature that saves against your spell needs to save again. Pop 3 critters with a persistent glitterdust, and they all have to save twice to pass. Also, Bouncing Spell requires a swift action to redirect, and persistent spell requires no additional action expenditures.

**Edit**

Also, you mention that Create Pit controls a 15x15 area, when it's really a 20x20 area. You get 5 feet from all sides of the pit.

Agreed. Based on what I've read so far, you're pretty well versed in the rules and game mechanics, to the point where you even consider to look at the numbers on Toppling Spell and based on them, instill some justified skepticism. You're pretty qualified to write advice about wizards. No need to praise TM so much. Honestly, he's far from perfect, and there's plenty of areas to disagree with him on. In particular, his favorable view of calling / planar binding type spells is not one I share...

Agreed. Based on what I've read so far, you're pretty well versed in the rules and game mechanics, to the point where you even consider to look at the numbers on Toppling Spell and based on them, instill some justified skepticism. You're pretty qualified to write advice about wizards. No need to praise TM so much. Honestly, he's far from perfect, and there's plenty of areas to disagree with him on. In particular, his favorable view of calling / planar binding type spells is not one I share...

It's less about praising Treantmonk and more that this guide absolutely needs his guide to be complete. He's done half the work, I'm just completing what he started.

The link to his guide at the top of the thread is especially important for completeness in comparison, especially with the spells considered.

On actual advice on the feats, you might want to clean up the wording on persistent spell. You write "Bouncing spell for a single target," which implies that the feat only works on one creature per spell or on spells that target only one creature, when really any creature that saves against your spell needs to save again....

Fixed Persistent spell. Also made it blue because it's occurred to me that it does work with AOE spells.

As far as the 15x15 thing... I had it as 20x20, but Shoelessinsight changed it. Since he's better versed in the rules than I am, I didn't question it. I thought it was 20x 20 though when you draw that circle around the 10' square.

Also, you mention that Create Pit controls a 15x15 area, when it's really a 20x20 area. You get 5 feet from all sides of the pit.

That was my fault. He had it correct at first, and then I messed it up for some silly reason.

KaptainKrunch wrote:

As far as Persistent spell, I'm not a statistician, but I've heard that rerolling a dice and taking the higher is like getting a +3.5 to the dice roll. Is the inverse also true? If it is, then you're basically getting a 50% bonus on Heighten Spell when you use Persistent spell.

When you roll 2d20 and take the highest result, your average roll will be 13.825. If you roll 2d20 and take the lowest result, your average roll will be 7.175.

But the actual worth of this mechanic is a lot more complicated than that, because attack rolls and saving throws are pass/fail rather than having scaling effects.

The short story is that the value of "Pick the best/worst of two rolls" depends on the DC that you're rolling against. In most cases, it's better than +3.325.

It's less about praising Treantmonk and more that this guide absolutely needs his guide to be complete. He's done half the work, I'm just completing what he started.

Okay, yeah, I see that now. I wrote my post before I hit the spells section, and then noticed that all of the core stuff was missing.

KaptainKrunch wrote:

Fixed Persistent spell. Also made it blue because it's occurred to me that it does work with AOE spells.

Haha, awesome. Persistent Spell is probably my favorite metamagic because it multiplies the effectiveness of other feats, like Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus. I didn't mean to argue you into changing it to blue, but I agree with it as a blue metamagic feat. It's great.

Looks like you are far ahead of me in spells. Of course, I am tackling ALL spells and you are just tackling a portion of them.

I didn't look at them in detail, but I did not see book references for the spells. If you are covering material outside of core, you need to let people know where to find it. All you have to do is put (APG) or other abbreviation at the beginning of each spell.

Also, make this your own. Stop talking about Treantmonk and start talking about you. If you disagree with him, then make the changes. What little I did read confused me whenever I came across two different voices. I want to hear your voice.

Unprepared Combatant: The biggest issue is the cast time. 3E had a similar spell in Spell Compendium called Shock and Awe (great name!). It was an immediate action and iirc gave no save.

Ear-Piercing Scream: It's not as good as Color Spray, but it targets a different save, does decent damage, and the daze effect never really goes obsolete. I would rate this higher.

Vanish: Potent effect initially, but the duration makes it quickly become less appealing once you've got a few 2nd level slots available to put Invisibility in. Might be rated too high. not sure.

Dancing Lantern: Not just Light, but dancing lights is a cantrip, too. This spell sucks.

Jury-Rig has a very limited use in using on the party fighter's crappy non-masterwork shield if he's using Fortified Armor Training feat to effectively give him crit immunity. Not saying that makes it good, but it is a sort of cool low level trick.

Yeah, unprepared combatant would be much better if they left it.

I've seen a sorcerer build that focused on lowering saves do wonders with Ear-Piercing Scream. He locked him up completely each round and since he'd lowered the target's saves there wasn't much he could do about it. I think I'll mention that and make it green.

I mostly think Vanish is worth keeping around at higher levels when your level 1 spells are less valuable. Invisibility is powerful, even for 5 rounds. Memorizing Vanish as a sort of contingency plan while doing other things with your second level spells in my opinion is a viable option.

I'll have to look into the Jury-Rig thing. I'll get back to that once I get a few more spell levels done. Don't let me forget.

I think you severely underestimate the Prescience power from the Foresight school. Having played a diviner, I can't really express how useful it is to have a huge number of pre-rolls each day. It's extremely useful to know in advance when you can safely attempt an attack (or even when you're going to crit!) or a difficult skill check. In a fight against a caster, just using it every round will give you a great statistical advantage when it comes to passing saves.

It's also great for any wizard relying on spells that call for d20 rolls, like Hydraulic Push, Dispel Magic, Telekinesis, etc...

It also helps you a lot against spell resistance.

To me it's a much greater selling point than the aura you get later on, which is just a nice bonus on top the truly great level 1 ability. Incidentally, I think that it's also one of the abilities that is worth spending your elf favoured class bonus on.

I think Shoelessinsight worked out that there are something like 3000 spells in the spellbook (he'll correct me if I'm wrong) That's no small task!

Heh, maybe in 3.5e, but Pathfinder is a little less than half that figure.

According to Mike Chopswil's spell database, there are 1,464 spells in Pathfinder right now. That's including all the adventure path stuff that's on d20pfsrd.com. So Caleb almost has them all. Impressive, to say the least!

I think you severely underestimate the Prescience power from the Foresight school. Having played a diviner, I can't really express how useful it is to have a huge number of pre-rolls each day. It's extremely useful to know in advance when you can safely attempt an attack (or even when you're going to crit!) or a difficult skill check. In a fight against a caster, just using it every round will give you a great statistical advantage when it comes to passing saves.

It's also great for any wizard relying on spells that call for d20 rolls, like Hydraulic Push, Dispel Magic, Telekinesis, etc...

It also helps you a lot against spell resistance.

To me it's a much greater selling point than the aura you get later on, which is just a nice bonus on top the truly great level 1 ability. Incidentally, I think that it's also one of the abilities that is worth spending your elf favoured class bonus on.

Hmm.. True.

There IS a lot of value in knowing what's going to happen ahead of time. While it technically doesn't improve your odds mechanically, it could very well improve your decision making by having an ace in the hole ready in advance.

After thinking about it some more, I like the ability for the flavor on top of the effect. I'll remove my "Meh" sentence and even suggest that for some it might be worth the elf favored class bonus.

looks all good, I was sad seeing the scrollmaster orange, but you're probably right, I just like the flavour so much for a few (fun) concepts.
You don't judge too many spells green or blue, but I didn't miss any good spells yet.

i see an issue with spell perfection. you say "Spell Perfection: Pick a spell and add free metamagic to it once per day."

but there is not a use limit in the feat discriptor:

Pick one spell which you have the ability to cast. Whenever you cast that spell you may apply any one metamagic feat you have to that spell without affecting its level or casting time, as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level. In addition, if you have other feats which allow you to apply a set numerical bonus to any aspect of this spell (such as Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, Weapon Focus [ray], and so on), double the bonus granted by that feat when applied to this spell.

is this errata that i dont know about?

and i would have to disagree with the opinion that heighten spell is a bad meta magic feat. when used in conjunction with this feat you can make a baleful polymorph mage with a dc 37 save. you may even be able to get it higher, im only using the CRB + traits as a refrence point.

i see an issue with spell perfection. you say "Spell Perfection: Pick a spell and add free metamagic to it once per day."

but there is not a use limit in the feat discriptor:

Pick one spell which you have the ability to cast. Whenever you cast that spell you may apply any one metamagic feat you have to that spell without affecting its level or casting time, as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level. In addition, if you have other feats which allow you to apply a set numerical bonus to any aspect of this spell (such as Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, Weapon Focus [ray], and so on), double the bonus granted by that feat when applied to this spell.

is this errata that i dont know about?

*jaw drops*

Wow, that's a heck of a lot better than I interpreted it. That right there is a horrible misread.

Geeze, that really helps that feat a lot. Before I was almost hesitant to make it blue.

TheSideKick wrote:

and i would have to disagree with the opinion that heighten spell is a bad meta magic feat. when used in conjunction with this feat you can make a baleful polymorph mage with a dc 37 save. you may even be able to get it higher, im only using the CRB + traits as a refrence point.

Hmm... does it really double Heighten Spell? I'm not sure that counts as a "set numerical bonus" since it's dependent on the spell's relative level.

no it doesnt double it, but it turns it into a 9th level spell adding +4 to the save dc
taking the trait... magical knack, i think, you can reduce the modified spell level after applying the meta magic feat by 1. making it a 9th level spell fits in the prerequisite for making it a "free meta magic feat" when used with this spell.

now i dont know about how the wording works, if you can add more meta magic feats on top of that to the spell one it reaches a 9th level, as in :

heighten it to 9th then add persistant spell on top making it a 10th level spell over all, but the metamagic feat you are applying to said spell would make it less then 9... if you see what im trying to say.

Thanks for the tip on Evolved Familiar. I'll add that to the text and maybe even make it orange. I personally don't like having my familiar deliver touch spells though.

Reach is one option, there are others. How about Skilled (UMD)? You're using the familiar for extra actions via wands/scrolls, right? And it normally can't take feats like Skill Focus even if you wanted to spend feats on that stuff. So this basically makes UMD viable for the familiar 8 levels earlier than it normally would be. Seems pretty good to me.

Lots of very good evolutions, summoner is a very powerful class. Again though, cha 13 requirement hurts a lot.

no it doesnt double it, but it turns it into a 9th level spell adding +4 to the save dc

taking the trait... magical knack, i think, you can reduce the modified spell level after applying the meta magic feat by 1. making it a 9th level spell fits in the prerequisite for making it a "free meta magic feat" when used with this spell.

now i dont know about how the wording works, if you can add more meta magic feats on top of that to the spell one it reaches a 9th level, as in :

heighten it to 9th then add persistant spell on top making it a 10th level spell over all, but the metamagic feat you are applying to said spell would make it less then 9... if you see what im trying to say.

Yeah, I definitely see it as being great for a save-or-die build, if not necessary.

Thanks for the tip on Evolved Familiar. I'll add that to the text and maybe even make it orange. I personally don't like having my familiar deliver touch spells though.

Reach is one option, there are others. How about Skilled (UMD)? You're using the familiar for extra actions via wands/scrolls, right? And it normally can't take feats like Skill Focus even if you wanted to spend feats on that stuff. So this basically makes UMD viable for the familiar 8 levels earlier than it normally would be. Seems pretty good to me.

Lots of very good evolutions, summoner is a very powerful class. Again though, cha 13 requirement hurts a lot.

I remember reading somewhere that James Jacobs said that Spell Perfection does not work with Heighten Spell.

Spell Perfection says that a feat does not change the level of the spell, and that's the only effect that Heighten Spell has, so you can't spontaneously/freely apply Heighten Spell to a spell using Spell Perfection. Because Heighten Spell doesn't actually increase the DC of the spell, but sets the spell's level (the result of which is a higher DC), its effect should also also not be doubled by Spell Perfection in the same way that Spell Focus's effect is doubled.

I've always read the doubling portion of Spell Perfection as not applying to metamagic feats at all. Since it starts by listing what benefit it gives to metamagic feats, and then goes on to say: "if you have other feats which allow you to apply a set numerical bonus to this spell...". So the "other" might imply non-metamagic feats - as the benefit you get for metamagic has already been explained.

Regardless of whether this is a correct interpretation, of which I am by no means certain, the section on Spell Perfection could still be expanded to list some other good suggestions for feats to pair it up with. Like Augment Summoning, or Spell Specialization, or Spell Penetration. You can also make a very optimized save DC for Dazing Spell if you stack spell focus, elemental focus and spell perfection (+8 total to the DC - be a Spellslinger too for +13, but that may be a little over the top).

You need to Mention the Thassilonian Specialist from inner.sea magic.
Have 2 BANNED schools like in 3.5 and you get 2 bonus schoolslots instead of 1. Oh, and has to be the same bonus spell. Still pretty good though.

not to digress the thread, but this does not say "no it does not work." it says lets see if it should work or not.

I think it's relevant to the thread because it affects feat ratings.

Even if it did allow you to heighten spells for free, though, it would not double the effect of heighten, because Heighten Spell's effect is not to increase the DC. It sets a new level for the spell, which CAUSES a higher DC.

So if you could heighten for free, a Fireball with Heighten applied by Spell Perfection to raise its level to 9 would have its DC calculated as if it were a 9th level spell, because Heighten Spell made it a 9th level spell. Heighten Spell does not directly add 6 to the DC, though, so you wouldn't get +12 to the DC of the spell. I'm not sure what you meant the feat did, but hopefully this clarifies the way they interact.

As a DM, I'd be fine if a player wanted to use Spell Perfection to apply Heighten to a spell spontaneously. I consider it one of the less powerful uses of the feat, especially when you consider the absolute wrecking ball that a Dazing Chain Lightning is with Spell Perfection, and Spell Focus/Greater Spell Focus/Elemental Focus/Greater Elemental Focus. DC 24+Int mod reflex save from every enemy in the entire area or be dazed for 6 rounds, for the cost of a level 6 slot. That's a lot more powerful than a spell that's heightened from 5 or 6 to 9 for free.

i never said this made them stack. i said that heighten spell would allow a 5th level spell to have the save dc of a 9th level spell.

which means a +4 to the save dc.

Ah, okay, so we're actually on the same side. I almost said in my post that I wasn't sure if that's what you meant or not, but I couldn't keep the flow of it like I wanted and still throw that in there without a whole lot of extra work.

Dazing Spell is excellent. If it's possible despite all the spell levels (one of the feats via metamagic rod, perhaps), it stacks beautifully with persistent spell. Or bouncing spell, if it's a single target, one-off blast, though you shouldn't be wasting Dazing on those. I like Dazing Spell best on stuff like Flaming Sphere, Ball Lightning, Aqueous Orb. Reflex based spells that you get to keep around for a while and move to new targets each round to spread the daze around.

Combine it with spell perfection and the elemental focus feats. Yes, thats a +8 to DC.

As an expansion to the earlier discussion of the benefits of Persistent Spell, here are a couple of quick charts that demonstrate the effective bonus/penalty from rolling twice and taking the best/worst roll.

The DC is the natural d20 roll needed to succeed after all other modifiers are considered. The bonus/penalty is the modifier that the two rolls are equivalent to for that DC.

As you can see, abilities like Persistent Spell are most effective when you have close to a 50% chance of succeeding (or your enemy is close to 50% chance of failing).

As an expansion to the earlier discussion of the benefits of Persistent Spell, here are a couple of quick charts that demonstrate the effective bonus/penalty from rolling twice and taking the best/worst roll.

The DC is the natural d20 roll needed to succeed after all other modifiers are considered. The bonus/penalty is the modifier that the two rolls are equivalent to for that DC.

As you can see, abilities like Persistent Spell are most effective when you have close to a 50% chance of succeeding (or your enemy is close to 50% chance of failing).

my one issue with this assesment is that you are only factoring in the stistics of it, not the certainty of knowing that you will succeed.

i would apply persistent spell on a auto success knowing that my opponent my still roll a nat 20. the odds in rolling 2 nat 20's in a row makes the spell worth while imo.

The thing about Fast Study is that it frees you from ever having to prepare noncombat spells before you're sure you'll need them. (And forget about making scrolls of circumstantial spells. Use your time and money crafting wondrous items instead...everything in your spellbook is one minute away.)

I think pausing for 15 minutes in the middle of the day to prepare spells would start to bug people if it happened five or ten times a day, whereas 1 minute is no big deal. Since taking Fast Study I tend to leave around half my spell slots open in the morning. If you don't do much utility casting, or your days are pretty predictable, your mileage may vary.

(I could see people arguing that leaving a bunch of slots open is a good idea anyway, and it may be, but in practice I didn't use to do it before being disinhibited by Fast Study.)

Transmutation has been kind of tiresome since it's been bloated up with a lot of useless flavor spells in levels 1 and 2. 3rd level was just a little bit better though, and I know that there are fewer spells going into higher levels, so it's a little more downhill from here.

Nice work. I really like the look of Shifting Sands too. You could add that it actually makes a very nice combo with Grease or Sleet Storm, since it provides a no-save, no-sr way to almost completely lock down landbound foes without good Acrobatics (like Golems, or similar).

Nice work. I really like the look of Shifting Sands too. You could add that it actually makes a very nice combo with Grease or Sleet Storm, since it provides a no-save, no-sr way to almost completely lock down landbound foes without good Acrobatics (like Golems, or similar).

Good point! Didn't think about how it reducing acrobatics could do that.